Tae Quarterly Review for July has an article on Chinese literature which contains a new theory of its origin. The writer is evidently Professor Douglas, of the British Museum. Ho ropresouts the Chinese early Emperor Huang Ti PHF to be Nakbuute, chief of the gods according to statements on the cuneiform tablets recorded in thelauguage of Susiana. His Minister T'ang Kieh, the reputed inventor of charac. ters, is Dumkit, we are told, in ancient Chinese, and oan be recognized inDangi, one of the Kings of Ur, the city of Abraham in Babylonia, in fact successor of Likbagas, We are asked to believe that the Chinese historiographer of Huang Ti is identical with this King, because the King's name means " reed tablet" and the historiographer's name reads "carved wood." We are further informed that the Yi King, the classic lately translated by Dr. Legge, jo a book of which M. 'l'errien de la Couperie, who is also in the British Museum, has during the last few mouths found the key. Dr. Legge has patiently demonstrated what it meant according to Chinese commentatory, and after many years of study of the subjoot has calmly stated the probable sense of this old text. But we are now told that it is a collection of syllabaries of foreign words, and that M. Torrien de la Couperio is the happy discoverer of this fact. He has opened the seals of the book which has been closed for upwards of thirty centuries. "The key to the mystery which has been beyond the reach of Chinese scholars who know no other language than their own," writes the reviewer, enthusiastically, "hag within the Inst few months been revealed to a French scholar, who has brought his knowledge of the ancient Innguages of Babylonia to bear on the question."
Wo do not accept this view, because we find it impossible to recognise the validity of the proofs adduced in support of the hypothesis. That the Chinese were connected with Babylon cannot be disputed. The early identity of arts and culture between China and Babylonis aeufficient proof of this. Both nations recorded observations of the stars. Both nations had the cycles of ten and twelve. Both nations possessed the astrolabe consisting of the great circles of the sky formed into a hollow sphere, and employed it to mark the position and movements of the heavenly bodies. Both nations were skilled in agricul. ture and employed astronomy to regulate it. Both nations divided the day into twelve hours. Both nations used the clepsydra in connection with astronomical observation. Both nations employed ideographic characters as the foundation of a system of writing. Both nations were able to control inundations by hydraulic works, and in politics had an imperial system of goverament. In this sort of proof it is an intellectual duty to believe because it is reasonable. But it is a different thing when we are asked to recognize in the Yi-king an Accadian book, and to accept the ideutiGcation of te names of persons Chinese and Accadian primitive history, The Chinese authorities on old sounds do not allow the names of the ancient emperor Huang Ti and of his historiographer Ts'ang-kieh to be rend as the reviewer gives them. On the contrary, they require the initial ts in the first Lone to come from é, the initial h in the lower first tone to come from g, the final ug to come from m, the final ¢ to come from e, the Bunt ich in the ¢ series to come from if. Thus Huang Ti is Gem-te, and his historiographer is Tom-kit, or something yenr these forms. 'I'he belief in connection is right, but we ought to be carefal in regard to each of the steps in our proof. The iden of comparing the names of months and the meanings of those names in the languages of the Babylonian tablets and in Chinese is a good one. Bat the resemblances in words offered to our attention are too week to produce conviction. Que other fault only need here be mentioned. The reviewer has mixed together without distinction the statements belonging to different cycles of Chinese literature. Most of what we have related of the earliest Chinese history belongs to the Han literature, and how can we be sure that after an interval of 2,000 years the accounts given us by Han authors are genuine traditious? The Han literature was based on that of the Chen dynasty. The authors of the Chen period grew out of the early classical age. We are not at liberty to take what we find in the last of these three periods in the form of biography whether of Huang Ti or of any one else, and regard it as a genuine tradition of the time when he lived, which was 2,000 years earlier. Additions to Chinese ideas came from the west at different epochs daring that long period, and in the Chou dynasty philosophers began to write Dialogues of the Dead, of course drawing on their imagination for facts. From that time the office of the critic in distinguishing between history and invention became a difficult one, It is well that M. Terrien do la Couperie has appeared in the arena of controversy on ancient Chios, for it will call attention to the study of those parts of the old Babylonian literature, as preserved on brick tablets, which refer to subjects where comparison can be made. Wo shall learn after a fow years when the Babylonians first used the astrolabe, and when the clepsydra was invented. The ideographic charac. tors of Susiaua it will soon be possible to compare with primitive Chinese writing, and if, in addition to this, cuneiform scholars discover what was the state of thought before the time when gods such s Bol and Xisuthrus were invented, and what the Persians believed in before the introduction of the names of Ormuzd and Alriman, we shall then be in a better position to compare the old Chinese astronomy, mythology, and philosophy with those of Babylon and Persia,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.